The Four Baristas of the Apocalypse (sample)

Chapter 5

"Hey, give me a break," Ethlukjamson protested.  "I'm a digital entity, I work in binary.  Who ever heard of a stupid base-ten number system?  Plus, I'm still getting used to even having fingers.  Anyway, third question.  Who am I?  Well, that's a long story."

"Possibly," growled Mel, cracking her knuckles.  "But you're going to give us the short version."

Ethlukjamson grinned one of his most annoying grins.  "I think we've already established that you can't possibly hurt me."

"No, what we've established is that I haven't found out how I can hurt you."  Now it was Mel's turn to grin.  "Yet."

Ethlukjamson's smile faded, ever so slightly.  "Er, right.  The short version.  OK, so as I mentioned earlier, I am a hologrammatic AI, programmed to simulate a human.  I started off as a standard military-grade Rigellian AI, and was then customised with a humanity overlay, based on a combo of head-scans of Earthling specimens and broadcasts picked up from Earth.  You know—TV, radio, that kind of stuff.  My winning personality is a wholesome blend of all of these ingredients.  My appearance and name were designed to allow me to move unobtrusively through the human population—hey, no sniggering.  Clearly those areas could have done with a bit more work.

"And I am working on them.  I'm only a few days old, but I'm programmed to learn and process and refine.  I'm scanning all the radio, television and satellite signals I can pick up and I'm also currently downloading your entire internet—man, you guys really like your human anatomy.  Cats, too.  But the point is, my human personality may be a work in progress, but it is progressing."

Perhaps a little bit too much, reflected Ethlukjamson.  He was actually starting to feel like a human, rather than a Rigellian AI, pretending to be one.  Or at least he was starting to feel how he imagined he would feel, if he had feelings to feel with, which he kind of felt he did.  All the human personalities and bits and pieces of Earth knowledge swirling around inside his virtual head were starting to merge together with his Rigellian core and turn into—something else.  What exactly that was or would be, he wasn't sure.

He was a little worried about these strange feelings.  He was even worried about the fact that he was worried, as AIs weren't really supposed to do that.  The whole thing was giving him a headache and somewhat bizarrely, trying to convince himself that he couldn't possibly have a headache, because he didn't actually have a head, only made it worse.

"Anyway," he continued, shoving those thoughts to the back of his non-existent head, "I was programmed to pass as a person in order to achieve my primary function."

"Which is?" prompted Cora.

"Which is to give humanity the ability to fight back against their invaders."

"Yes, but how?" demanded Max.

"And why?" asked Cora.  "If you're from Rigel, why are you trying to help us?  Shouldn't you be helping them blow us up, or dig up more shoes, or whatever?"

Ethlukjamson glanced nervously at Mel.  "OK, still keeping it short.  Hmm, let's see.  The reason I'm trying to help you is Flixl Bluxlspun."

"What the hell is a Flixl Bluxlspun?" asked Mel.

"It's not a what, it's a who.  Dr Flixl Bluxlspun was a scientist.  But he was not an everyday, ordinary, sprint-of-the-grindstone"—"run-of-the-mill," whispered Cam—"scientist. He was the greatest mind of his generation and possibly the greatest in the history of Rigel.

"As befitted his genius, Flixl had the most important job to which a Rigellian scientist could aspire—to find and research new worlds for Rigel to conquer.